Red State Dems' Approval Ratings PLUMMET

By Dhruvaraj S - originally posted to Flickr as Elephant in Nagarhole National Park, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7677792

Could the Democrats' so-called blue wave in 2018 be giving way to a Republican crimson tide?

According to new polls, nine of the most vulnerable Democratic senators up for re-election in 2018 in states won by President Donald Trump have seen their approval ratings plummet in the last year.

Leading the way is Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana) who saw his net approval rating collapse by 18 points. At the stat of 2017, Tester's net approval rating was +25 – meaning that his approval rating was 25 percentage points higher than his disapproval rating. Now, it's just +7.

Other Senators received almost as lousy news: Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) dropped 11 points over the same period, from +28 to +17. Sen. Bob Casey in Pennsylvania recorded a 9 point drop, from +20 to +11.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) dipped by 8 points each. Manchin's approval rating declined from +24 to +16 over 2017, and McCaskill's has gone from +8 in the first quarter to zero.

Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Indiana) and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) each saw 6 point drops. Donnelly went from +20 to +14 while Baldwin went from +6 to zero.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan), also regarded as highly vulnerable, managed to buck the trend, but only barely: her net approval rating didn't budge, staying at +9.

Red state Democrats seem more vulnerable than ever, but one politician from a surprising state recorded the sharpest drop of 2017 –Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who faces renewed charges of public corruption by the Justice Department after his case ended in a mistrial last year. Menendez saw his approval plunge by 20 points, from +4 to -16.

While Democrats remain confident in their ability to win seats in the House, it's clear that the unfavorable Senate map and the tanking approval ratings of incumbent Democrats could result in an even stronger Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.